


the speed of falling objects

by Macremae



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Ghost drift, M/M, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim (2013), Post-Operation Pitfall (Pacific Rim), Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26548663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: “Yes, well,” says Hermann, glancing away for a moment, then, like gravity enforcing itself, back to Newt, “it’s not like this is a new development.”“Proximity breeds affection. Be honest: do you like me for my compatibility, or because I’ll tell you when you have spinach in your teeth?”D + T = The moment they meet in the middle.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 12
Kudos: 86





	the speed of falling objects

**Author's Note:**

> mwah to Charles for the beta!! @shakesexual on twt, @bae-science on tumblr. based tbh off that bit in nitw and “he’s my corner”

_looking left_

They are standing in a corner and the world is so loud you couldn’t tell if it really did end after all.

The noiseー bright, hot, pushing down on his skinー feels like a blanket on a summer’s day, and Newt presses himself back slightly against the junction of the mess hall walls. The metal digs into his shoulder blades, sore and probably bruised like a mosaic. He swallows around his tongue. Talking seems like something that maybe should be done right now; probably not. He has time to remember words, he supposes. Time and then some.

His eyelids feel just-this-side of heavy, exhaustion of the past few days finally catching up to him, and the negative space of the corner catches his sag. Newt presses the sole of his boot up against the wall and squares his shoulders a little. One of them pops. He watches Hermann wince in time with him.

“I feel like I can justify a massage,” he says, not really a non-sequitur with the meaning only a stray thought away. “Maybe after my muscles stop feeling like a crime scene, y’know, but the excuse is there.”

“Nice things can simply be nice,” says Hermann, and Newt huffs at the irony. 

“That’s my line.”

“Not anymore.”

The smirk Hermann wears is definitely Newt’s. It’s so weird, seeing his own expression translated to someone else’s face, but on Hermann it fits. His mouth crooks up differently, turning the muscle memory into a new one. His eyes crinkle in a way that Newt’s don’t. They’ve been looking at him ever since the clock stopped.

“You’re looking at me,” Newt says. Hermann’s face pinkens only slightly, which is how Newt knows, with relief, that what they need to talk about eventually will not be as difficult as he feared. The splotch of watery color emboldens him. He winks.

“Yes, well,” says Hermann, glancing away for a moment, then, like gravity enforcing itself, back to Newt, “it’s not like this is a new development.”

“Proximity breeds affection. Be honest: do you like me for my compatibility, or because I’ll tell you when you have spinach in your teeth?”

Hermann rolls his eyes, but does that same little awkward-earnest shuffle closer. The noise around them dies down slightly. Newt assesses the correlation.

“It’s fucking loud,” he muses, half-shouting to prove his point. Hermann nods. 

“Do you want to leave?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. We earned this. But I think you repel fun and whimsy just on principle, so if you could angle yourself towards the beer pong table, that’d be great.”

Hermann shakes his head and sighs, but retreats further with Newt into the corner. He leans back against the wall slightly for support, and circles his left ankle until a series of soft cracks make Newt wince. “Jesus. You think they have a two for one deal?”

“I don’t like massages. They make heating pads for a reason.”

Newt bumps his shoulder gently, taking care not to jostle him while he’s off balance. “You Victorian dummy. I’ll do you tomorrow. Trust me, I took a Masterclass.”

Hermann arches a skeptical eyebrow, but Newt knows he knows it’s the truth. Instead, he returns the bump with a tap of his cane to Newt’s foot. 

“So do you intend on just standing here for the rest of the night? They have those little alcoholic sodas you like. With the flavors.”

“I deeply appreciate you not calling them fizzy drinks; thank you.” When Hermann gives him a flat stare, Newt laughs. “No, no, _they_ didn’t get almost eaten today. Like, twice. I’m gonna have a hangover tomorrow for a totally different reason.” He rolls his shoulder back; another pop. Hermann rubs at the same spot on himself. “And probably a trip to the dry cleaner’s.”

Hermann blinks once. “You’re tired, then.” At that, Newt shoots him a grin.

“Look at you, fussing. Somebody had a Masterclass of their own the past few days, huh?” The look sharpens to a half-hearted glare. Newt holds one hand up, palm out, defensive against nothing serious. “Hey, hey, I’m not saying I’m horrifically opposed, dude.” In a burst of confidence and recklessness, he knocks his head against Hermann’s shoulder and lets it rest there for a millisecond. “You didn’t think I would say thank you?”

“You don’t need to,” Hermann mumbles, mouth half in Newt’s hair, he realizes. He’s tilted it down to keep looking at him. “I only expect a bit more than a moratorium on Kaiju-chasing from now on.”

“Well, boy, Hermann, I sure hope so.” Newt decides to let his head stay where it is. Hermann has very broad shoulders. There’s plenty of space. “And yeah, I _am_ gonna thank you. You saved my ass. You Drifted with me. See, those things mean something in human society.”

Hermann snorts into Newt’s hair, the puff of breath disturbing it for a moment. “Anyone wouldー or shouldー have done the same.”

Newt shakes his head slightly, so as not to disturb its place. “Nah. I can’t think of anyone else I would rather have as the first inside my head. You’re my one and only, babe.”

He says it thinking it’s a joke, but then the words leave his mouth and he realises it isn’t. Hermann does as well, and turns to stare, wide-eyed, at Newt. The hall has now faded to a dull thrum, nothing in Newt’s ears except their own heartbeats. His throat is dry, and he swallows. 

“Sometimes I don’t think you know what you’re saying half the time,” Hermann says quietly, voice suddenly tinged with a rough edge. Newt wants to run a hand down his pale, dirty throat and smooth it out. He licks his upper lip.

“Never to you. Wouldn’t take anything less.”

“This isn’t something you want to come back from.” Not a questionー Hermann is putting out hope. Newt was going to ask the same. He doesn’t think it’s possible to be what they wereー hiding in plain sight, papering over the truth of their feelings with anger that was more drive than ever holding each other backー after this. They already know the steps to this new dance, anyway. Now they don’t have to pretend to hate the music.

Even the bodies around them have blurred outー smeared bits of color emitting pale echoes of sound as Newt moves his own head so their faces are inches apart. Hermann’s breath smells slightly of the nervous cigarette he smoked in the helicopter, the four cups of tea he drank while waiting for Newt to come back, and a phantom memory lacing it all of fear, iron and dull, at the back of his throat on the ride to Kodachi. One foot points slightly towards Newt, hand coming up to hover just above his ribs. Hermann blinks. His eyes are huge, brown centers of gravity. 

Newt is a scientist. He doesn’t resist when they finally pull him in.

_looking right_

They are lying in bed and the world is so quiet you could hear a match strike.

Hermann always found the idea of someone watching him while he slept a bit creepy, but as he feels the mattress dip slightly under the weight of Newton’s elbow, adjusting himself while staring solidly at the mole on the back of Hermann’s shoulder blade, the gaze feels more like another blanket to add to the collection he has piled around them. The mole, he notes as consciousness creeps in enough to sense Newton’s mind, is an important point of focus here.

“Well yeah,” Newton mumbles, voice still scratchy from sleep. “And you considered it a pretty important point last night, if I remember.”

Hermann feels his face turn the pillow warm beneath him. Skin-on-skin contact, especially an abundance of it, is a novelty for him, and he feels he can’t be judged too harshly for anything he might have said, or done, or gotten a bit overwhelmed by after they’d retreated to his quarters.

Newton’s chuckle is a puff of warm air on his back. “I’m not. I’m not. I’m appreciative.”

“You could be so quietly,” he grumbles, turning his face into the pillow but not pulling the blankets up any higher, “or at least not this early.”

“I’ve barely said anything!”

“You’re thinking loudly. I’m privy to it now.”

“‘Privy’,” Newton snorts, and lets himself flop back down onto the mattress. He scootches up behind Hermann and snakes his (warm, thankfully) arms over his ribs and around his waist, then ducks down to press a long, light kiss to the mole. Hermann feels his breath catch.

“Now who’s thinking too much?” Newton snickers into his skin, drawing a chaste line with his lips up to the back of Hermann’s neck. He tucks his chin over his shoulder and splays his hands out. “Jeez, you’re cold. Are these blankets selective or something?”

“No. You’re a leech.” Hermann pulls two over them and twines a chilly leg with Newton’s bare one. “I don’t usually have to wear socks.”

“Oh yeah, epitome of sexiness. Don’t be meanー” he says quickly as Hermann noticeably rolls his eyes. He nudges one of the socked feet in question with his own. “Proper circulation is so sexy. I’m a biologist; I would know.”

“Last week I saw you Google how to spell ‘mitochondria’.”

“Why would I ever keep that information in my brain? I never even went to high school.”

“That might have been a beneficial experience for you.”

“You’ve never been inside an American high school, have you? Your nostrils would explode in, like, twenty seconds tops.”

Hermann recalls Newton’s single memory of visiting one, and grimaces at the olfactory twinge in the back of his mind. “Do not put this in writing, but: point conceded. Christ.”

He feels Newton smile against the back of his neck. “I can totally forge your handwriting now. I have the muscle memory.”

“I know your deviantART password. Checkmate, Newton.”

Newton lightly kicks his good leg under the covers. “Asshole. I’ve developed as a person; you can’t hold what’s on there against me.”

“Now that is _highly_ debatable, but alright.”

“No, no, I hadn’t been to therapy yetー they’re not reflective now.”

“Which kind?”

“Of fanart?”

“No, therapy. There was a larger variety of _that_.”

In a gross mis-approximation of Hermann’s accent, Newton begins to recite at him, “Dear Alan, class was simply _dreadful_ todayー”

“I will leave this bed, Newton.”

“This is your room!” he half-shouts, barely containing his laughter. “You wrote your diary entries to ‘baby’s first kin’ー”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Yes you do, and you’re so, so mad about it.” Newton pokes him just barely in the stomach. “Welcome to your new dictionary in the bowels of the internet, buddy. It only gets worse from here.”

“I hate you. I really do.”

“Liar,” Newton says lovingly, and kisses the top of Hermann’s head. Hermann twists his head back and catches his lips just as he pulls away; it’s only fair. Reciprocal.

The water pipes hum quietly above them, switching on as some poor, hungover soul makes their way to the showers a hallway down. Hermann hears the faint buzz of Newton’s dinosaur night light glowing in its socket. The watery blue light it casts just reaches the tips of his hair, framing his head in a soft halo. He looks over Hermann’s shoulder, Hermann looking over it at him, face in slight shadow. 

Newton’s mouth creeps into a foolish-looking grin. “Hi,” he says. Hermann feels his own lips curl upward. How lucky he is, that this is not the most embarrassing moment Newton has found him in. That he wants this smile to be seen.

“Hello. I didn’t know you still had a night light.”

“Well duh.” Newton’s smile skews upwards to one side; a besotted smirk. “I’m a grown-ass man. I know how important it is to protect myself at night. Monsters could even fit under _these_ beds.”

“How you can even sleep with it blinding you is beyond me,” Hermann says. He brushes their knees together. “If this is to continue, I’m at least requesting a dimmer bulb.”

Newton touches his nose to Hermann’s shoulder, resting his head there. “Nah,” he says. He looks up through his eyelashes, gaze bright even in the hazy darkness. “I don’t need it anymore. I’ve got a real monster-slayer right here.”

Hermann can almost hear the swipe of Newton’s tongue against his lips, heartbeat echoing a half-step behind his own against his back, and laughs, then reaches up to cup his jaw. He misses his mark at first, lips finding Newton’s stubbled chin, then the edge of his cheek, then finally meeting in the middle in a soft, warm press as the world wakes up around them.


End file.
